Did you hypothesize about your social problems before AS?

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I was just curious how everyone's personal history has been like before they discovered autism, aspergers and/or before discovering how highly they scored on autism spectrum tests. Personally, I noticed that I had a problem "connecting" with people that pervaded much of my lack of social ability in high school, and my own scientific analysis into the problem suggested that I wasn't "emotionally excitable", wasn't "sensitive" to the "emotional norms" underlying typical human interactions, my facial expressions weren't responsive in a "normal way" in social situations, and I didn't spend time "on stupid petty human / relationship issues." -- I also spent much time experimenting with different facial expression rules and different rules governing tonality of ones voice. This was far before I realized I scored fairly high on autistic spectrum tests which then led me to believe my differences or commonly so called "eccentricity" was really "autistic-ness", in a disguised not-quite-as-bad-as-autism kind of way. And, the thing is, my own scientific analysis of my differences jives quite resonantly with the Aspergian criteria, long before I realized what aspergers was!

So, what was your discovery process like?

(Granted, I'm still open-minded to the possibility these eccentricities are really schizo- in origin, but it seems like many people who eventually develop schizophrenia in their twenties don't have serious social difficulties like I did as far as experimenting with facial expression and tonality rules and "naturally connecting" with people in high school? There seemed to be a large number of schizophrenics on student.com that had people they "naturally connected with".)

do you miss being 'eccentric'? do you feel like you're better off for having taken the ASD tests?

What?

I'm still eccentric, and that's nothing I really can help. I can 'try' to be normal as much as I want, but it's still pretty close to impossible. The ASD tests really just provide a possible explanation of previously inexplicable differences that seem facial-expressionally/tonally "socially inappropriate" in origin. I once placed blame on "not enough social practice in childhood", but that was obviously a cop out as I had plenty of opportunity to practice, so it was obviously genetic in origin and the fact that 1) AS is largely genetic and 2) I score highly on AS tests leads to the high likelihood that 3) Those difficulties are likely AS in origin, even though probably not strictly as severe as "hardcore aspergers".

Yes, I did. I thought all my problems had to do with how I was raised. I was homeschooled, so I used to blame my schooling on my lack of social skills. However, this couldn't explain the fact that I had problems interacting with my peers in my mainstream preschool. I actually took two years of preschool because the teachers thought I was slow. I was also hyperlexic, but I couldn't play with other kids and I was mute for much of my childhood. I resumed mainstream school in 8th grade. I was two grades ahead academically, but socially I was very behind. I still blamed it on the homeschooling and tried my best to fit in. Eventually I had enough and I was frustrated. By this time I was in college (UIC) so I went to see someone in the psychology department. I still had no idea about AS but after over a month of therapy, I was given the assignment to research how to filter sound. I was complaining of auditory filtering in science labs. I inevitably stumbled on Asperger's sites and wrongplanet was actually one of the first sites I visited. Anyway, I came to the next therapy session with the AS question and sure enough, she was already waiting with the AQ questionnaire. It's like she was prepared for me to bring it up. I guess she knew from previous sessions that I had it, but she wanted me to come to the conclusion on my own.

I chalked it all up to personality disorder instilled by crappy parents. Then a friend pointed out to me that she thought I
had AS and it was a flashbulb moment. It explains all of the things the personality disorder did, many things it didn't plus
things I had never really thought about muvh but that I knew most people didn't seem to contend with.

I was treated as an outcast ever since kindergarten, but I never knew why. I had no idea that I was socially inept. I thought I was shy, or perhaps a "late bloomer", and the teachers told my parents I was probably just eccentric as a byproduct of having a high IQ. All I knew for certain was that the other kids didn't like me for some reason. Nevertheless, I embraced my status as an outsider early on, all the while secretly wondering why I was the way I was.

Sometime in elementary school, I remember coming across a packet about ADHD near the nurse's office and reading it. I knew I didn't fit the criteria, and I began to wonder if there was a name for people like me, people who are always in their own worlds.

In junior high, I became severely mentally ill with OCD, anxiety and depression. My search to discover who I was was put on hold, because it was hard enough just trying to live day to day. After I recovered by taking medication and seeing a counselor, my social problems didn't go away even though my mental illnesses were under control. I told my mom that I still didn't "feel right". We bought and read books on bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, but those didn't seem to fit.

Then one day while going to have my blood drawn, the doctor began asking my mom and me a bunch of questions that didn't seen relevant to anything. Then the doctor said I probably had Asperger's Syndrome. I talked about it to my psychiatrist, and he said that he always suspected it. He had us fill out paperwork and I received a formal diagnosis. The diagnosis was confirmed by an autism specialist in our area.

Before I had discovered that I probably had AS, my previous theories:

- I suspected that the problem was the trauma of having being split form my elementary school friends when I had to junior high.

- Other of my theories was that I had an overactive imagination and, because that, I feel more pleasure in my internal fantasies and/or reflection that with real-world social interaction

- More or less in 1995, I self-diagnosed myself with schizoid personality disorder

In the first times, the discovery of autism spectrum was devastating for me, because then I understand that the theories that I had spent decades to build were wrong.

I thought I had repressed some very early childhood trauma.

I thought I might have ADHD. Turns out I was right, but that autism was a more significant part of my neurology.

The eccentricity and insensitivity to social norms Swbluto described hit really close to home for me. I kept trying and trying to socialize normally in grade and middle school but eventually decided it was just "my personality" to be an annoying nerd. Being told I was normal except for being extremely intelligent by my mother did not help any, either.

I also noticed I had a lot of OCD and ADHD traits, so I just chalked it all up to a combination of those two and the social awkwardness of the "gifted." Alas, this did not explain everything and I continued searching for the Grand Unified Theory of Me.

Since finding out about Asperger's, it's been amazing seeing all the pieces fall into place so nicely. It's not a perfect picture yet, but it's far more unified than any other version I've had.

A psych explained hyperfocus to me from ADHD and I knew that was one piece. Since my seemingly antisocial (really asocial) behavior was always explained and treated as defiant and sinister, I researched what my meltdowns were and all I could come up wih was Borderline Personality Disorder. So I thought it was BPD+ADHD but now seeing myself so much in my son, AS is such a more fitting and innocent alternative. That's one thing I could not find, it wasn't mean or bad, just different networking.

I thought my mum had been impregnated by aliens from another world

I thought there was something ethically wrong with most people, and that I was somehow more ethical, and here for a special purpose

I tried every other theory as well, but it seemed that no matter what theory I came up with, there was always some counter-example at school that embodied those very same traits whom had no problem "connecting with people" (I tried "too depressed", "excessively hyper", "too sarcastic", "too analytical", "too intellectually stupid", "too mean", "too boring", "not funny enough", "too monotonic", "not confident enough", ("adhd" doesn't fit my personality), etc.). I also speculated "gifted-ness", but the only socially relevant IQ index was "Verbal IQ" and my verbal IQ was only measured to be in the 127-133 range, and there were plenty of people at my school with a verbal IQ in the 125+ range who didn't seem to have my kind of difficulties. Also, you'd think that if it was due to "shy-ness" or some amount of inhibition, you'd think that your "real personality" would shine online and there'd be a sudden explosion of friends if you earnestly tried, right? Albeit, they might be a bit off the mainstream path, but you'd find something, right? Nope, that didn't exactly happen for me. I'm not exactly concerned about finding online friends *now*, but I thought it was a bit odd when I was trying a few years ago that I was having social difficulties offline and online despite intellectual and memory abilities suggesting I should be more than capable if I tried. (And, even stupid people seem to have no problem "connecting with people".)

Also, now that I'm at college where the difference in intellect is a bit less than during high school, there's the same "Failure to connect despite trying" trend suggesting it had little to do with intrinsic intellect.

Also, I've translated Eckblad's Social Anhedonia scale in the search for evidence of "schizo-" type of traits and social anhedonia is one of the traits from the negative side of the schizophrenic spectrum, and it turns out my social anhedonia score is ... right about average. So, it appears my "satisfaction from socialization" really is just about the same as everyone else's, and assuming everything else is equal, that'd imply an equal social drive so 'social drive' isn't to blame, either.

A high nonverbal IQ only really seems to help someone out with their math homework, lol.

Last edited by swbluto on 19 Apr 2011, 8:53 am, edited 2 times in total.

Yes.

At one time I thought it was a cultural difference, and that I just didn't fit into the typical American culture (whatever that is). Also, other kids used to call me the "n word" when I was a kid, so obviously it must be a racial thing. But when I met other people of my ethnicity, I didn't fit in with them either.

Then I thought it must be because I'm gay, and people hate me for that. So I tried to hang out with groups of gay people. They were even worse and more judgmental than general society.

People always told me I was shy, so I thought I was shy. I tried to overcome my shyness by doing all the things recommended for that. Didn't work. Besides, I had these problems even when I didn't feel anxious at all.

So then I decided I was just an introvert. But when I talked online to other people who claimed to be introverts, their experience was still very different than mine. They needed alone time and preferred to think before they spoke, but they weren't by any means pariahs like I'd always been.

Autism had crossed my mind before, but I'd disregarded it due to my belief that the common misconceptions were true, because they didn't fit me. When I finally actually researched it, it was the first time an explanation really made sense.

As a child in the '50s, I felt like I just must have been adopted or something. In the '60s, I assumed my social problems at school must have been related to my being "religious" or whatever, but I really did not fit in any better even at church. In the '70s, I attributed my job-hopping to the fact I was no longer working in my father's factory and other employers did not know how to run things properly. In the '80s, I learned about my alcoholism and entered the completely-new-to-me "world of recovery" ... but then it did not take long to realize I would never really be accepted even there. For the next ten years or so, I did all kinds of research and introspection along spiritual lines and still found myself unable to really figure myself out.

Within this past decade or so, I first heard (did some reading and learned a few terms) about my lack of social and emotional intelligence, and then I eventually met a diagnosed Aspie who seemed to understand and have those same struggles ... and then I ultimately ended up here, and now a psychologist has said I have some kind of somatic fixation on AS/HFA ...

Go figure, eh?!

I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and went on medication for 8 years. But I still had some problems. I didn't know anything about introversion and AS until about a year ago, even though I knew a lot about psychiatry. I talked with my current psychiatrist and even though he wasn't too convinced at first, he now believes that I'm probably on the lower end of the spectrum. What was helpful was my best friend who's kid has moderate autism and is very active in the autism community and met many adults and young people with AS and ASD. He was 1 of 3 individuals who thought I might have AS. I really found the "Intense World Hypothesis" and that pdf article arguing for the link between introversion and ASD posted on this site very useful.